Is ‘meteor wine’ true? Crater discovered in a French vineyard | Sorae Portal site to space

When a meteorite hits the Earth’s surface,craterSo-called “depressions” do form, but their number is small on Earth, and it is estimated that there are only about 190 of them in existence. Given that the Moon has more than 9,000 craters on its surface, the large Earth has fewer craters. Due to the movement of tectonic plates and weather on Earth, craters and their impacts disappear when they sink underground or are eroded by wind and rain. In fact, few craters on Earth are visible, most of which have been confirmed by geological surveys and other evidence.

Three craters have been found so far in Western Europe. Rochechouart in France, Nördlinger Ries (Ries Crater) in Germany, and Steinheim Crater in Germany.

However, there are other places that are alleged to have been excavated besides these three. One of them is in the south of FranceDomaine du Meteor (Domain du Meteor)”. This land of vineyards is a basin about 220 meters in diameter and about 30 meters deep. As the name Météore (meteor in French) suggests, in the 1950s the crater was claimed to have already formed as a result of a meteorite impact.

However, this claim was rejected a few years later. The reason is that no edges or magnetic anomalies were found, which are typical features of craters. For many years the Domaine du Meteor was not scientifically recognized as a crater, but was claimed to be a wine marketing crater.

Meanwhile, Mr. Frank Brinker of Johann Wolfgang Goethe-University in Frankfurt am Main, who visited the Domaine du Meteor while on vacation, learned that this place was a crater caused by a meteorite impact, and at the same time was skeptical of the crater theory. I realized that the process of basin topography that I deny is not geologically convincing.

So when Brenker examined the rock samples, he found evidence that suggested a meteorite impact. For example, rocks called “crystalline schists” are usually only rich in mica, but in the crystalline shale of the Domaine de Mitole, we found veins formed by fracturing the rock. In addition, breccia, consisting of various large and small rock fragments that harden like concrete, was very similar to another breccia crater, formed by solidification of rocks shattered by meteorite impacts.

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In order to obtain more evidence, Brinker, together with his colleague Andreas Jung and his students, visited the Domaine du Méteor again and did additional research. As a result, Brinker and his colleagues found that the geomagnetic field in this region is slightly weaker than in the surrounding regions. This is a typical magnetic anomaly seen in craters, but it was overlooked in studies in the 1950s because the divergence with the surrounding area was so small.

Also in the Earth there are many small spheres of iron oxide that are attracted to a magnet. The balls have an average diameter of 0.2 mm and a maximum diameter of 1 mm. The main component is an alloy of iron and nickel, a typical component of meteorites (meteorites with a large amount of metal), and these metal globules are known to occur even in small craters.

In addition, we have found minerals such as extremely small diamonds that form in a high-temperature environment associated with meteorite impacts, and evidence that it is unlikely outside of meteorite impacts that quartz was strongly impacted. This evidence overturns traditional judgments,Domaine du Meteor is actually a crater formed as a result of a meteorite impactit turns out.

At the Domaine du Meteor, two rivers flow north and south through the basin, and the edge is presumed to have disappeared due to erosion. The basin that survives today is probably not the entire crater, but its original diameter is unknown.

Although this discovery is weak in claiming that it is a crater caused by a meteor impact with only one piece of evidence, it is hard to believe that only a meteorite impact could account for all the evidence at the same time. This achievement, spurred on by Mr. Brinker’s visit, makes it more likely that Domaine du Meteor is not just a marketing brand, but a veritable vineyard crater.

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Text: Rare Aya